The Bollywood and international veterans are slated to attend IFFI Goa this year

Celebrated Hollywood actor Susan Sarandon and well known Iranian director Majid Majidi could be the star international attractions at the 44th edition of the International Film Festival of India (IFFI), organisers said Friday in Panaji, Goa.

Speaking to reporters union minister for Information and Broadcasting Manish Tewari said that The Don Juans would be the opening film at the festival.

“Susan Sarandon and Majid Majidi have been invited to be members of the festival’s jury,” Tewari said at a press conference in Panaji.

Tewari was in Goa to oversee the preparations for the festival which is being held in the state annually since 2004.

Festival Director Shankar Mohan said that the festival had received over 650 entries, out of which 216 films from over 70 countries would be screened at the 10-day event which begins November 20.

The major highlight of the festival, Shankar said, would be the showcasing of the culture of north east India through films in the regional panorama section. He also said that apart from cricket celebrities, Indian film personalities like Rekha and Asha Bhosle would be in attendance.

The official also said that nearly 4,000 delegates had already been registered by the film festival authorities.

The actor has drawn the ire of an anti-tobacco group for the poster of his latest film that shows him smoking and that too, through the torso of a semi-naked woman

An anti-tobacco organisation in Panaji on Thursday (March 28) demanded that Bollywood actor Saif Ali Khan should be punished for violating the country’s anti-smoking laws in promoting his latest film Go Goa Gone.

Shekhar Salkar, general secretary of National Organisation for Tobacco Eradication (NOTE)-India, registered a complaint with the North Goa district collector and deputy inspector general of police, seeking punishment for Saif under provisions of the Cigarettes and Other Tobacco Products Act (COPTA), 2003.

“Caution was thrown to wind in the massive publicity campaign in Goa, India and abroad by putting up large number of advertisements in newspapers and on Internet of Go Goa Gone, showing lead actor and producer Saif Ali Khan with a cigar in his mouth,” the complaint read.

Salkar also referred to the film’s poster that shows a cigarette burn hole through the torso of a semi-naked woman. “These advertisements must have been already seen by lakhs of Goans as well as others in India and abroad. The display of a popular icon smoking a cigar is the violation of Section 5(1) of the COPTA,” Salkar added.

In a separate letter to Saif, Salkar said the actor was an icon for millions of Indians and that he should be careful while choosing his public appearances. “Needless to say, a person of your stature has to be utterly careful in public appearances – both as an artiste and as an individual,” the letter said. “You are a well-informed gentleman and I need not mention to you that this action of their idol would be imitated by millions of your followers, eventually pushing most of them in the jaws of cancer and a premature, early death. Unmindful of the imminent consequences, the youths would embrace this menace, just because they would want to imitate their icon,” the letter added.

NOTE has in the past dragged actor Amitabh Bachchan to court over the issue of publicising use of tobacco in a film called Family. The organisation has also filed complaints against Shahrukh Khan for smoking during an Indian Premier League (IPL) match and against Ajay Devgan for smoking while shooting for a Bollywood film in a government-owned premises.

NFDC’s Punjabi movie was honoured with the Golden Peacock at the 43rd International Film Festival of India

Punjabi film Anhey Ghorhey Da Daan (Alms For A Blind Horse) won the Golden Peacock award for best film at the 43rd International Film Festival of India (IFFI) in Panaji Friday.

The National Film Development Corporation movie (NFDC), adapted from a novel by Gurdial Singh and directed by Gurvinder Singh, was one of the 15 films in the international competition section vying for a cash prize of Rs 4 million.

The Silver Peacock award for best director went to Kyu-hwan Jeon for South Korean film The Weight. Anjali Patil won the best actress Silver Peacock for her role in Tamil-Sinhalese film With You Without You while Marcin Dorocinski was named the best actor for Polish film Rose.

A special jury Silver Peacock award was given to Lucy Mulloy for Spanish film Una Noche.

Filmmaker Mira Nair was given a special peacock and a Centenary Film Award for her new Hollywood movie, The Reluctant Fundamentalist, which was the 11-day festival’s closing film.

It’s curtains down on the 43rd International Film Festival of India with Mira Nair’s film. The director speaks on the sidelines

The closing ceremony of the 43rd International Film Festival of India will be held tonight, and Mira Nair’s latest film The Reluctant Fundamentalist will have its India premiere on the occasion. The ceremony will be hosted by TV actor Rohit Roy and Australian filmmaker Paul Cox will be the guest of honour. A pick of films from the festival will be honoured with awards like Best Film, Best Director, Best Actor (Male and Female), Special Jury Awards, and the Centenary Film Award to celebrate the 100 years of Indian cinema.

Ahead of the closing of IFFI Goa, Nair interacted with the audience and revealed what made her take up the film. She said in a statement, “My inspiration to make The Reluctant Fundamentalist came from my first trip to Pakistan in 2004 when I was invited to showcase my films, which are sort of popular in there. My relationship with Pakistan is special as my father was born and educated in Lahore and had to come back to India after the partition. So as a child growing up in modern India, we still speak Urdu at home. It was sometime later that I read the manuscript of the book which was Mohsin Hamid’s second book, which formed the base of my film.”

On showcasing the film at IFFI, Nair said, “We have opened the film in Venice, Toronto, Doha, London and all other festivals and nothing else makes me happy to bring it back home. I am very pleased to be here especially with my colleague Shimit Amin who is a wonderful director in his own regard. He gave me the privilege of spending a year of our lives together editing The Reluctant Fundamentalist. I am also happy to be with the first choice of my heart PVR Cinemas to open the film. It will open worldwide in April and it is a great honour to be here hosting the first Indian premiere of the movie.”

On her experience working on the film, she further revealed, “The Reluctant Fundamentalist is the most difficult film of my life and took three years to adapt into a screenplay. The film is more of a monologue and needs to be looked into as a dialogue. It was shot across four continents and has the major film stars from all across the world. The movie is a real comment on what is going on in the world today, and charts out the upheavals of the past decade. This is what took me five years to complete the movie and gives me great satisfaction now to see the appreciation and the reception the movie gets.”

The Goa police confirmed that director Shankar Mohan’s computer was stolen by a Kerala delegate at the 43rd International Film festival of India

Police have arrested a film festival delegate from Kerala for stealing a laptop belonging to the 43rd International Film Festival of India (IFFI) director Shankar Mohan. Superintendent of Police (North) Vijay Singh told reporters in Panaji that a delegate from Kerala, MK Venu had stolen the laptop from Menon’s cabin where there was no one around on Friday, November 23.

“We have recovered the laptop from Venu’s hotel room in Panaji,” Singh said. Mohan had filed a police complaint last week after he discovered that his laptop was stolen from his cabin located in the well-guarded IFFI campus.

The 11-day festival will begin with the screening of Life of Pi, while the closing film will be The Reluctant Fundamentalist.

About 12,000 delegates are expected to be arriving in Goa for the festival. This time round, 47 movies will feature in the Indian Premiere section notable of which is the opening Assamese movie, Baandhon by director Jahnu Barua. Out of the 47, 26 are feature films and 21 are non-feature films in different Indian languages, officials said. The IFFI’s International Competition section too will have 15 films, two of which are in Indian regional languages namely - Anhey Ghorhey Da Daan in Punjabi and Elar Char Adhyay in Bengali. The festival’s Cinema of the World section will feature 55 films, according to the festival officials, who also said that overall 70 films would be premiered during IFFI.

A separate section has been also crafted to commemorate the 100 of years of Indian cinema and its journey from grainy black and white and silent films to the films of today, in which 27 films across periods and genres will be screened.

The festival will also have a special homage section dedicated to legendary director Yash Chopra and late superstar Rajesh Khanna, both of whom passed away this year. International film personalities like Claude Miller, Angelo Theopolous and Tony Scott will also be accorded homage.

Among the celebrities who are expected to attend the festival are Irrfan Khan, Mira Nair, Tabu, Suraj Sharma and Paoli Dam. Over seven film-screening halls have been commandeered by the IFFI authorities to screen the films.

The actor has confirmed his presence at IFFI 2012 in Goa

Bollywood superstar Akshay Kumar will inaugurate the 43rd International Film Festival of India (IFFI) which gets underway next month, an organiser said Tuesday.“We have just finalised it. Akshay Kumar will be inaugurating the IFFI this year. He has also okayed it,” Vishnu Wagh, Vice-Chairman of the Entertainment Society of Goa (ESG), said on Tuesday. The 10-day IFFI will be held in Panaji from November 20.

Akshay, who has several superhit films to his credit, also has a house in Anjuna, located 20 km north of Panaji. The name of Bollywood legend Amitabh Bachchan had also been shortlisted along with Akshay to inaugurate the festival, which is being held in Goa annually since 2004. Wagh also said that the inauguration of the IFFI this time round could move from being ritually held indoors to a picturesque river jetty, located in the city itself. “It will be a much grander event this year with over 2,500 people attending it, as against the 1,000 odd invitees, who were traditionally invited every year,” Wagh said, adding that the Goa government would be spending around Rs 9 crore for the 10-day event. “The central government will only foot the bill for the inaugural and closing ceremonies,” Wagh said.

The Goan Catholic Welfare Union threatens to halt the screenings of the Priyadarshan film if some ‘objectionable’ scenes are not deleted

After protests in Mumbai, the Christian community in Goa is up in arms against Priyadarshan‘s latest film Kamaal Dhamaal Malamaal. The Goan Catholic Welfare Union (GCWU) has threatened to disallow the screening of the film in the state if “objectionable” scenes in it are not deleted. “If the film is screened in Goa, we will protest. We will make sure that it is not shown,” GCWU spokesperson Juino de Souza said on Wednesday. “If need be we will involve the chief minister and Christian legislators in the Goa assembly,” he added.

The GCWU here has raised objection to scenes of a Roman Catholic priest shaking a leg to peppy music, and the “abuse” of symbolic Christian images like a cassock wearing priest fooling around with the Holy Water and wearing a garland of lotteries.

Kamaal Dhamaal Malamaal, which releases on September 28, 2012, stars Nana Patekar, Paresh Rawal, Om Puri and Shakti Kapoor, and has been produced by Percept Picture Company.

Joseph Dias, on behalf of the Christian-Catholic Secular Forum (CCSF), accused the film industry of taking the Catholic faith for granted. “We don’t even protest vociferously enough, let aside come on to the streets or be violent. No one is advocating violence, but a legal protest must go out from every Christian and Church… if we are to live with respect and not as second-class citizens,” he told reporters.

Just a few months back, another film Kyaa Super Kool Hain Hum had been in the news after Catholic groups protested scenes where a priest had been shown solemnising a marriage between dogs.

On the other hand, there is the news of Kamaal Dhamaal‘s lead actor Paresh Rawal being upset with the inclusion of Sonakshi Sinha’s item song Go Go Govinda in the film. Surely an item song in a film on God is strange!

IFFI Goa will be technically superior and have better infrastructure this year

The 43rd International Film Festival of India (IFFI) is going to be technically superior to previous fare, an organiser of the festival said Monday. According to Vishnu Wagh, Vice-Chairman, Entertainment Society of Goa (ESG), which is one of the two agencies in charge of hosting the festival that takes place here annually, also said that the Goa government is also looking at setting up a film city and an entertainment hub in the state.

“We are in the process of upgrading the production facilities. The AK Bir committee is in the process of making an audit of the available infrastructure as well as recommending additional infrastructure for the event,” Wagh, a Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) legislator, told reporters in Panaji. The AK Bir committee – which also has among its members Govind Nihalani, Kishwar Desai, Prasoon Joshi, Nandita Das, Pritish Nandy and Shabana Azmi – is currently evaluating the available infrastructure used for screening the several hundred films and documentaries at each festival.

The brief given to the committee consists of preparing an audit of current facilities as well as coming up with suggestions to improve and enhance the film viewing experience at the IFFI, which is jointly hosted by the central government’s union Ministry for Information and Broadcasting and the state government’s ESG.

Wagh said one of the rub-offs of the IFFI was making Goa a legible point on the film and entertainment map of India. “The creation of infrastructure is the biggest plus which comes along with the IFFI. Our target is to use the impact of the IFFI and the reach it gives us to create a film city as well as an entertainment hub for Goa,” Wagh said.

A Goa legislator wants the chief minister to complain to the censor board over the depiction of the state and Christian priests in the film Kyaa Super Kool Hain Hum. The film, produced by Ekta Kapoor, was released last week. Reginaldo Lourenco, a Congress legislator from Cortalim, told the legislative assembly Wednesday that the character of the priest, played by actor Chunky Pandey, was disrespectful to Christianity and projected Goa in a wrong manner. “Please take up the matter with the censor board. The film is showing Goa and Christian priests in a bad light. This should not be allowed,” Lourenco said.

Responding to the request, Chief Minister Manohar Parrikar said the Central Board of Film Certification, commonly known as the censor board, was under the purview of the central government. “This is not under the jurisdiction of the state government because censor board jurisdiction lies with the central government. The censor board should check that no religious group should be offended in the film. If you give me a complaint in writing, I will take it up with the censor board,” Parrikar said.

Kyaa Super Kool Hain Hum is a sequel to the 2005 film Kyaa Kool Hain Hum and stars Tusshar Kapoor and Riteish Deshmukh.